Unilever, KDS ink deal

19 January 2007

Unilever is planning to implement KDS solutions to its workforce in the UK. This rollout comes after three years of initial projects that resulted in €1 million in annual savings and streamlined Unilever’s reservations process.

The initial engagement began in 2003, when Unilever looked to KDS to help them change travel buying behaviour across the company. The primary objective was to implement a self-booking tool in the Netherlands that - if successful - would serve as a blueprint for other regions.

Unilever selected KDS Corporate as the self-booking tool most likely to address its needs, in particular the ability to create a specific travel policy for each corporate location, provide advanced workflow capabilities, and offer quick, on-screen access to pricing information.

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Based on ease of use and an intensive awareness programme around the new solution, Unilever Netherlands was able to achieve an adoption rate of 83 per cent by the end of the pilot phase, far exceeding the company’s expectations.

Going beyond the tool’s proprietary benefits, KDS Corporate also allowed Unilever to make the most of its relationship with Travel Management Company Carlson Wagonlit Travel (CWT). By integrating the KDS self-booking tool with CWT’s U-Travel solution, Unilever estimates an average saving of €1 million annually over the past three years and enjoys a usage rate of 75 per cent.

Based on these results, Unilever will bring KDS Corporate to its UK offices and continues to investigate its use in other European locales.

“We chose KDS Corporate for its ease of use, flexibility and performance,” said John Aussems, General Facilities Manager for Corporate Centre, Rotterdam. “We were also very impressed by the company’s professional attitude and ability to help us clearly identify and reach our objectives.”

“Looking back over KDS’ relationship with Unilever, we feel the results speak volumes about how big an impact the right business travel solution can have,” said Yves Weisselberger, CEO of KDS. “Going forward, with travel & expense solutions converging, these types of projects will continue to have a reliably positive long-term return as companies truly optimise their travel and expense management processes.”——-